Israel confirms plans to create 22 new settlements in occupied West Bank

Defense affairs

Israel has said it will establish 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, including the legalisation of outposts already built without government authorisation, after a security cabinet vote held in secret last week.

Israel occupied the West Bank, capturing it from Jordan, in the six-day war of 1967. Since then, successive governments have tried to permanently cement Israeli control over the land, in part by declaring swathes as “state lands”, which prevents private Palestinian ownership.

The motion was said to have been put forward by the far-right defence minister, Israel Katz, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, which is considered illegal under international law.

Katz said the settlement decision “strengthens our hold on Judea and Samaria”, using the biblical term for the West Bank, “anchors our historical right in the Land of Israel, and constitutes a crushing response to Palestinian terrorism”.

He added it was also “a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel”.

A spokesperson for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said: “Israel continues to promote Jewish supremacy through the theft of Palestinian land and the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. The Israeli government is openly and blatantly working to destroy the Palestinian people, and any chances for a normal future for the people living between the Jordan River and the sea.”

The spokesperson added: “The international community is enabling Israel’s crimes by standing aside while millions of Palestinians are subjected to this racist and brutal regime of the Israeli government.”

The government intends to use the 22 settlements to bolster Israel’s presence around Route 443, which connects Jerusalem and Tel Aviv via Modiin and was described by Israel Ganz, the head of the Yesha council umbrella group of West Bank Jewish municipalities, as “the most important decision since 1967”.